The Coming “Impact Revolution”—A Revolution of How Not What

The most common question we hear from nonprofits concerning next gen donors is: Are they going to give to the same issues and causes as their predecessors? For the most part, our answer is “yes,” although it's a complicated “yes.” The issues that this rising generation says they want to support track with those that have interested past generations, even though there are some variations (see Chapter 2, especially Figure 3.1).

However, how next gen donors go about supporting these causes will certainly change as will which organizations they gravitate to within those cause areas. This is because the coming transformation in philanthropy is driven by next gen donors' obsession with impact, with seeing the real difference their giving achieves. This Impact Revolution means next gen donors will favor those organizations that can most clearly demonstrate tangible results and can most directly tie the involvement of next gen donors with specific impacts. This is very good news for some nonprofits, and difficult news for others. As you know, showing clear, near-term impact is easier for some organizations, so some nonprofits will need to adapt more if they want to survive.

Next gen donors also have a deep desire for long-term, close relationships with just one or a few organizations; they are less interested in simply spreading around their money. This guide aims to help your nonprofit—and especially your development and donor engagement teams—adapt to the changes ahead and become one of those organizations that rising donors want to invest deeply in.

The Next Gen Is the Now Gen

Some would argue that the Next Generation should be called the “Now Generation,” given this generation's tendency to start giving at far younger ages than ever before. In our survey, we found that 50 percent of Gen X and Millennial big donors had started giving their own resources by the age of 20, and over 98 percent by age 30. This new behavior is summed up by next gen donor Alexander Soros, who is featured in Chapter 9, and echoes so many other next gens in saying, “Why wait?” Unlike previous generations, next gen donors aren't putting off major giving until the sunset of their lives or even until their peak earning years. They see today's needs and are compelled to jump in. As Soros puts it, “There are problems going on in the world now; why not get started with my own giving now?”

Embrace the Eagerness

Smart nonprofit professionals and fundraisers will build meaningful donor relationships with the next generation starting today. Harness the youthful energy of these rising donors, while enabling them to imprint on your organization—its people and mission—while they are still forming their philanthropic identities.

Unfortunately, too many next gen donors feel like the one who told us, “I'm almost mad that [certain nonprofits] haven't tried to develop me as a donor. There's a lot of ageism, I find.” They feel nonprofits don't cultivate their generation as donors with the same care and respect given to their elders—even when these younger generations have equally ample resources and an eagerness to get involved.

If you proactively take steps to identify and recognize the agency of all adults in your organization and donor relations, you can get ahead of the curve.

Take Advantage of Next Gen Donors' Preference for Closer, Longer Term Partnerships

Another exciting finding of our research is that while next gen donors prefer having relationships with fewer organizations than did their grandparents and parents, they are predisposed to maintaining more profound and longer partnerships with their chosen organizations. If current trends continue, they are poised to give more over a longer period. So, another benefit of cultivating next gen donor relationships now is that you position yourself to establish stable bonds for decades. Many thirty-something donors we interviewed articulated how organizations they became engaged with in their teens and twenties became a central part of their giving plans for the long haul.

Make Sure Next Gen Donors Feel Like the Adults They Are

Next gen donors unequivocally want nonprofit professionals, development staff, and volunteers to treat them like the individuals and adults that they are, rather than the children or grandchildren of their well-known older family members. Such individuals often hold advanced degrees, lead companies and organizations, and parent children of their own, yet because their parents or grandparents might be the biggest donors to a nonprofit or because they are self-made men and women but are the same age as the children of those major donors, they are directed to sit at the “kids' table.” While most nonprofits do not set out to give this impression, and while it may be really hard for nonprofits to navigate the different generational perspectives of Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials simultaneously, it is essential to pay attention to signals your organization might be giving to this effect. This is especially true with next gen donors who are already living in the shadow of accomplished, highly praised parents or grandparents.

How can you do this? One donor describes a best-case-scenario relationship with a nonprofit she supported: “They knew me for the work that I did and they knew me for the person that I am. I wasn't the grandson of someone or the nephew of someone, I was just me. And people respected me because of the work that I did and the quality of work that I delivered for that organization. I appreciate that.”

Focus on the Relationship, Not the Transaction

The worst-case scenario we encountered in our research is when next gen donors feel they are treated “like an ATM,” as governance and fundraising consultant Emily Davis (featured later) describes it. Next gen donors want to be taken seriously as capable contributors having both “means and a brain,” to be appreciated for “the skills and the smarts that I hopefully bring to the table, not what kind of car I drive.” And they don't want to stay involved with nonprofits that only acknowledge their existence when money is needed. This is especially true of next gen donors who are earning and giving their own wealth.

Our advice is to focus on the relationship, not the transaction. Work with the next gen prospects and donors as real people with personalities, interests, talents, and values. Build relationships based on trust and communication by engaging next gen donors in genuine two-way conversations. Be curious. Be respectful. Befriend. One donor quoted earlier in the book explained that this relationship, if healthy, can last 30 years or more, so do the little things to stay connected and to show you “care about them as people.” Email to invite them to stop by the office for a chat. Call on their birthday. Remember, as that donor said, “It is a relationship. You have to be willing to invest in me as I'm investing in you.”

Don't Assume, Ask

We have witnessed many nonprofits creating well-intentioned programs to engage next gen donors and meet them where they are—or where they think they are—and then seeing these programs fail. Nonprofit professionals come to us saying “We planned this event” or “We set up that committee, but no one came.” Unfortunately, in many cases these failures were at least in part caused by nonprofits moving forward with programming without enough input from the next gen donors themselves. So we strongly encourage you to ask Millennial and Gen X donors how they want to be engaged. They'll certainly tell you. And, yes, sometimes even an idea that came from one of your current next gen donors will fail, but that is an opportunity to engage them even further to figure out how to do better. They will welcome that challenge.

For example, some next gen donors—especially those who are self-made—may be consumed with a growing business and unable to personally contribute time, but still want creative ways to give money to a nonprofit. Meanwhile, others might want to use their nonprofit support as a way to engage their whole family in a multigenerational philanthropic experience—as a way to bring together parents and grandparents, or parents and children, or both groups. But the key is, you won't know unless you ask. Ask questions that build relationships, like: What motivates you to want to give? What kind of change do you want to make in the world? How can our organization help you do that? How do you want to be engaged?

The same donor who used the relationship metaphor also emphasized asking donors how they can become engaged, pointing out that this also applies to money:

The biggest challenge that nonprofits have is that they make assumptions. An organization might make assumptions that I don't have skills and that I don't have money. I have money. I am just not out there putting it on a billboard. You have to ask.

Go Slow to Go Fast

Taking time out of busy schedules to articulate values can seem a waste to nonprofit leadership and pressured development staff with funding goals to meet. But taking this time is a way of fulfilling that mantra we hear in the organizational development world: “Go slow to go fast.” If we don't pause to talk about values, we risk undermining the very relationships that we want to build with next gen donors. As this next gen donor urged, “Please don't ask me to another young professionals' happy hour, get me drunk, ask me for money, and then never do anything with [me] again. Have a strategy, be thoughtful, know that these are people who could potentially care very much.”

We have learned it's better to slow down and build relationships with next gen donors, just as you would any elder donors you are cultivating. Ask them where they've come from, but more importantly, ask them who they are and what they value. You'll be surprised at how often you will find direct values connections, and how eager these donors are to talk about their values. And they'll be delighted to know you understand what motivates them.

One innovative nonprofit we've learned about, the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, purchased Motivational Values Cards from 2164.net and used them to facilitate a conversation about values with young philanthropic families. This helped them articulate how the zoo's programs might align with a family's values and was valuable to the families as well. In fact, the interactive exercise was so welcomed by prospective families that the development team at the zoo has created its own deck, called Wild Talk, featuring animals as an educational and engagement tool to use with young children.

Help Your Older Donors and Board Members to Have a Multigenerational Conversation

One of the most effective ways to engage next gen donors around their values is to proactively foster conversation about values and legacy between elder donors and their children and grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. Next gen donors—whether inheritors or earners—acquire the values that influence their giving from their families, not from Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. In fact, 89 percent of next gen donors said they learned their values from their parents and 63 percent said they learned from their grandparents. As Chapter 10 shows, next gen donors—especially the inheritors—also take the idea of stewarding or leaving a legacy quite seriously, consciously thinking about such questions even at a young age. These next gen family members welcome being invited into a family narrative and told the personal stories of their predecessors that reveal major life events and what decisions were made in the face of those events leading to who they are today.

Nonprofit professionals can proactively encourage older donors and board members to communicate their values and legacies during their lifetimes in a very direct way to their next gen family members. Encourage these elders to introduce their children and grandchildren, nieces, and nephews to you so that you can develop relationships of your own with them, and so they can open a discussion now—while they are healthy and of sound mind—rather than when the will is read and next gen family members are left to interpret for themselves if and how their elders wanted them to continue their philanthropic commitments. Older donors can let next gen family members know if they are expected to steward the family's legacy as is or if they have permission to innovate on a theme.

You will probably find that older donors are eager to have these conversations, and welcome the platform you can provide to host those discussions. Most donors want to talk about their giving with their children and grandchildren, but might not have found the moment. You might also run into challenges with elders who are reticent to face their own mortality or who simply don't know where to begin. Fortunately, tools exist to help. There are biographers, videographers, oral historians, and other consultants who specialize in helping people to convey family narratives and transmit values down the generations. There are also advisors, such as Susan Turnbull, Eric Weiner, and Elana Zaiman, who help elders write “ethical wills” and “legacy letters” that go beyond financial matters. At 2164.net, you can find Motivational Values Cards and Picture Your Legacy™ Cards designed to help donors describe their values and legacies to future generations and articulate what they haven't yet found words to express.

When Possible, Define Impact Together

Of course, nonprofits will already know the range of impacts they want to achieve. And “seeing” impact can mean different things to different donors—for some, it is numbers on a spreadsheet, and for others, it is the face of kids served by a program. This can make defining the intended impact of a next gen donor's giving complicated. Best-case scenario: You and your next gen supporters define impact together in a way that fits the organization and means something to the donors.

The key is talking with next gen donors about how to define impact together. Katherine Lorenz, a next gen inheritor who contributed a feature in Chapter 10, gives an eloquent description of how the meaning of impact can vary across the generations: “I think everyone has this feeling for the most part that they want to see where their money is going. And so, for my grandfather, that was seeing the bricks and mortar on the building with his name on it because that is tangible and he knows it happened. I think the younger generation's ‘seeing’ is being on the board or being involved or seeing the person that [we] helped. We worry more about the programs inside the buildings rather than the bricks on the outside.”

Whatever a younger donor's definition of impact might be, nearly all want to see the impact of your organization in tangible, undeniable ways. (We discuss this trend in depth in Chapter 2.) Once you define impact in a way that aligns with your mission and with a donor's values and goals, showing impact is the key to unlocking future next gen commitment.

Think Carefully and Creatively about How You Show Impact

So how can you help donors see their impact? Consider ways to put next gen donors in direct, personal contact with your staff and volunteers as well as with people or areas your work supports—whether through site visits, volunteer opportunities, or simply giving next gen donors the opportunity to hear the stories of clients (if you have them). Help next gen donors envision the change they can create—especially in the life of one real person. Help them see the changes in a community or an issue area in a tangible, powerful way. When possible, do this in actuality, not conceptually. This next gen donor explains, “People want to be involved with something where they can make an impact…. [Site visits] do exactly that. They show them tangibly where the money goes but also show them exactly where they can make an impact.”

Face-to-face encounters with impact are possible, given today's technology, even if in-person meetings are not. For example, DonorsChoose.org is a nonprofit that allows public school teachers to post information online about their underfunded classroom needs; donors then choose which projects to support.

However, this need to show impact to next gen donors can devolve into well-intentioned but misguided efforts to keep big donors happy by defining success in ways they prefer, or that can be easily seen but don't make sense for your mission. Your primary focus should always remain on the real, complex needs and goals you exist to serve. Next gen donors who will become real long-term partners will agree.

Address Specific Challenges of Showing Impact

Unfortunately, this imperative of showing impact will be easier for some nonprofits than for others. For example, not all organizations do work that produces impact that is easily monitored or shown in the short-term, or that affects people that donors can meet or see in a direct way.

Some social issues take a long time to address, and progress is often incremental (think of climate change or mental health), and some charities focus on meeting immediate needs while other organizations tackle complex, entrenched systems. The good news is that many next gen donors are already willing to meet you halfway on this challenge, due to their tendency to favor long-term partnerships: “You're investing in an organization; you want an ongoing relationship with them. It's probably long-term. Real problems take several years to solve, laying the groundwork and identifying areas of need, and going through many, many different stages. You might not see the outcome for a while. But I think we're able to operate at a scale where our giving would be most effective over a period of time rather than just a one-time, one-year thing.”

When the outcomes of your work are harder to see, especially in the short-term, work with next gen donors to define impact goals in ways that make sense. Impact might be more about improving the organization in some specific way, for instance—creating new programs or meeting operational targets. This could even be a way to get more donor support for core operations, capacity building, or even R&D—something you might find difficult to do with your existing donors. The good news is that next gen donors want to build the long-term, close relationships that can lead them to see just how important this operational support is for eventual impact.

How Your Large Organization Can Seem Smaller

To appeal to Generation Impact, large institutions like hospitals, arts institutions, and universities will need to adapt. While big nonprofits cannot magically transform into smaller ones, they can be creative about making themselves seem small to next gen donors. For example, instead of asking these new donors to contribute to your major fundraising campaign, ask them to give to a segmented piece of that campaign that supports a specific new program or initiative. Connect them closely to a new initiative or to the scaling up of a successful pilot program.

When possible, get them involved with this smaller piece of your institution in hands-on ways. Put them on a task force to help devise specific new programming as well as help raise money for it. Put them in touch with the people inside your large institution doing the real work in ways that donors can see, “on the ground” so to speak. Be sure to increase both proactive and passive (e.g., online) communication channels between those running your programs and next gen donors.

Emphasize Leverage and Targeted Impact

Larger nonprofits also have the benefit of making the case that their size and assets can lead to even bigger impact, which is ultimately what next gen donors want. If you work within a combination organization like a United Way or Jewish Federation, or if you are in charge of a huge campaign for a large institution, emphasize the end result of the change you're trying to achieve through the campaign; alternatively, demonstrate how pooling funds with peers can scale up impact in dramatic and measurable ways. Show how you create leverage for bigger scale.

Combination organizations also need to find and amplify specific ways that next gen donors can feel more connected to the ultimate beneficiaries of their contributions. Connect donors to one specific agency that what they do and how they achieve it aligns with their values. Or, help them to see they are supporting a strategic, innovative, evidence-based solution that gets at root causes—another preference of next gen donors. Essentially, pull back the curtain and show them how their funds will have an impact within your institutional black other.

Embrace the Benefits of Transparency

Hannah Quimby, a next gen donor featured in Chapter 5, shares an enlightening story about the benefits to nonprofits of being more open and honest with donors and how this played out in the case of a struggling grantee. We highly recommend that you reread this section and discuss it with your team. Hannah notes how next gen donors like her want nonprofits to be frank about their struggles—even their failures—especially since next gen donors are predisposed to “almost always reward the organization's honesty.” The stronger the donor-grantee relationship, the easier it is to be candid—and the easier for a next gen donor to provide “thoughtful feedback” and creatively problem-solve together—as Hannah did in the case of her struggling grantee. The multifaceted help Hannah provided to her grantee would “never happen if we were just a check writer.”

For Generation Impact, transparency is an indicator of quality and trustworthiness. For example, this next gen donor spoke about a tendency to prejudge an organization based on the quality of its website and what types of information could be found there:

I think it's important the way that you present yourself as an organization to the outside world because everybody is a potential donor. I think that it says something about an organization that doesn't [have a quality website]. Sometimes it can say that they don't have the budget to do it, or that they are too new to have gotten there, or something that has nothing to do with anything bad. But other times it can also feel like they are not telling you everything. Like when they don't have financial information on their website, I get annoyed. Why wouldn't you have that on your website, easily available? It's not like I can't find it anywhere else.

The benefits of providing this level of transparency are that you not only woo more next gen donors, but you also establish relationships built on trust and communication that can be leveraged in times of need. By forging these relationships, you establish the precedent of two-way communication, and this yields more information about the funders and their plans as well as making them feel more connected to you as a real partner. As this next gen donor quoted in Chapter 4 explains:

No matter what you say, [nonprofits] are always going to treat you like you hold the power because in the end, you kind of do. I try to be really honest and express that we're not looking for perfection. We understand that things aren't always going to go your way, and that doesn't mean we aren't going to fund you anymore. I always try to keep really open lines of communication, to show that we are genuinely invested and support what they're doing. It's building a relationship that's more friendly than, ‘I'm holding a check over your head.’

Or what if you flipped around the equation? Instead of seeing it as a burden to be more transparent with donors, what if you tapped donors as a resource for solving organizational challenges? The next gen donors' desire to educate themselves about a nonprofit's issues and to focus on proven solutions can make them strong thought partners for nonprofit work if nonprofit professionals can find greater ways to engage them at this substantive level. By bringing them more into the candid inner circle of information, you might find they offer thoughtful feedback, useful talents, and new ideas that help you resolve a challenge. And if that's not an end in itself, donors like Hannah teach us that by being more invested in your accomplishments and challenges, they become more financially invested in your organization. Again, this means rethinking how you address problems in your organization and how you engage major donors, but doing so could pay off in many ways

Next Gen Donors Love Innovation—But Don't See Nonprofits as Very Innovative

As a nonprofit professional or fundraiser, you will need to accept next gen donors' love of innovation and learn how to talk with them about change—without, of course, ceding all control or throwing out the good in favor of the new. Many next gen donors—especially earners—view nonprofits as slow, cautious, and risk-averse, particularly when compared to the entrepreneurial, disruptive for-profit businesses on the rise today. As this next gen donor explains, “I think most young donors tend to view the nonprofit world as being stodgy and sleepy, with some really large organizations with people who are getting either paid a lot or paid to do not very much and not thinking. Most nonprofits don't come off as being hard-charging, competitive, innovative, and agile things. I think presenting those innovative parts of your nonprofit—and frankly being that—is what I'd recommend.”

Next gen donors have told us that they hope to find organizations that are trying new ideas and approaches to “move the needle” on long-standing societal challenges. In order to be a nonprofit that shows up as one of those organizations focused on making an impact on their core mission, you will want to highlight your innovativeness and then walk your talk. Engage next gen donors in conversations about how you can experiment together. Invite their ideas for innovation in not only how to raise money from their peers, but also in programmatic and operational ways. Given that Generation Impact studies and works in other industries, they will be able to offer you innovations from those sectors to strengthen your organization, if you're open to it.

Be Open Yet Authentic, and Give Respectful Refusals

One important aspect of learning to engage next gen donors is to do so without sacrificing your authenticity or patronizing these donors with half-truths. Sometimes you will need to say “no” to something a next gen donor is really excited about. Being loyal to a social issue, geography, or cause tied to your mission is a legitimate reason to turn down a next gen donor's idea, no matter how ready they may be to fund it. So is your own experience of trying similar ideas without success. But show that you are taking their idea seriously while declining, and give the reasons. The worst approach is to equivocate, saying “that's interesting” or “we'll take a look at that” and then never follow up. Next gens hate this, and it damages any trust you've built. As Jenna Segal says clearly in her feature in Chapter 6,

If a new next generation board member or donor has an idea for your nonprofit where they want to give money and get involved, please don't say “We'll take a look at that.” It seems almost a catchphrase for nonprofits. I hear executive directors and development professionals say “We'll take a look at that,” and then I never, ever hear back from them. Even if the answer is a disappointing one, like “Here's why we don't think this will work for our organization,” that at least communicates that you have respect for the person you are soliciting and that you care and have spent time thinking about what it was that they wanted to contribute.

While we are encouraged by next gen donors' emphasis on innovation to achieve greater results, their clear “bias toward the new” is reason for caution as well. Innovation is not a silver bullet for solving social problems, and we empathize with nonprofit professionals we've heard in the field expressing their frustrations, saying things like “Don't these next gen people realize they are making our lives harder and using their power inappropriately?” This can result in a version of the “bull in a china shop” problem where an eager next gen donor excited about a new idea comes barreling into an organization and causes unnecessary damage, despite good intentions.

To avoid this, you may need to proactively help next gens recognize the disruption they are causing, and help them see how this puts you in a tough position, especially if you are concerned their idea will undermine your mission. They sit in a powerful position, and you want to make them happy, which can inadvertently force innovation into spaces that aren't ready for it or that you don't have the capacity to support. As we discussed in the previous section, however, that honesty and transparency may lead the next gen donor to offer funding for the capacity building and infrastructure needed to bring about their innovative idea. The relationship may just grow from your sincerity.

Offer Them the Chance for Experiential Learning—To Learn by Doing

Next gen donors are consciously exploring and forming their philanthropic identities at this stage in their lives, and they are either open to or actively seeking resources to help them on this learning journey. And our research shows they particularly like hands-on and peer learning. This presents an opportunity for your organization to provide this sort of learning that they so desire.

While it's not easy to create meaningful experiential engagements for donors, those organizations that do will see the returns. As this donor attests:

Organizations that show an interest in donors beyond just the check that they write, and really find appropriate ways for people to get involved in the work, to create experiential learning opportunities—I think there is great potential there. That is hard to do. It takes resources on the organization's side. It requires a deep investment from the organization in its donors. But, there's a great opportunity for imprinting when you have next gens whose perspectives and future behavior are going to be shaped by the way that organizations engage them, and the culture of engagement that they learn at a young age.

Here are some tactical suggestions for providing this type of hands-on learning:

Provide Next Gen Donors with Peer-to-Peer Learning Experiences

As we detail in Chapter 6, another important form of engagement for next gen donors is peer learning. Perhaps because they have spent their lives more networked than any previous donors on earth, this generation tends to trust the authentic experience and information from peers (horizontal learning) more than they trust the stock info they get from organizations, media, and often even from their advisors (vertical learning). They crave ways to connect with and learn from their philanthropically minded peers.

One clear starting point for your organization could be offering to connect your next gen donors to one another. Help them find others asking the same questions and facing the same learning challenges as they are. Create a peer network connected to your organization, or help donors create their own peer groups. Whichever approach you take, ensure these groups give members the chance to learn. When next gen donors have not only a personal experience with their philanthropic peers, but an educational one, their individual grantmaker becomes bigger and better because they more confidently know how and what they want to fund.

And find ways to make use of these peer groups as an asset. Next gen donors can tell when they are invited to join a group that the nonprofit sees as just a cultivation tactic. Give them a goal that will genuinely help the organization increase its impact. Encourage them to galvanize their peer ties to effect real change in the organization.

To meet needs around peer learning, 21/64 has developed educational programming, ongoing peer networks open to next gen donors, and resources geared to new and next gen donors as well as families and advisors supporting them.

Find Creative, Specific Ways for Them to Go All In

We know there are plenty of nonprofits out there doing a great job of creatively finding ways to utilize the time, talent, and ties of their younger donors. And many of the previous sections of this guide point to ways of engaging donors that allow them to go “all in.” Here are two proven strategies:

Avoid Making Assumptions

In devising ways for your next gen donors to give their time and talent, don't make assumptions about what talents they have or want to give. Doing so will overlook their full potential. We found that many female next gen donors, in particular, complained about their skills being undervalued. Stay-at-home moms especially hated when they were sent straight to party planning or fundraising committees. As one put it, “Did you know I am much smarter than throwing you a damn party? I have more to offer than that.” Instead, encourage your staff to learn about the professional training and background of these donors, even if they're choosing to stay at home with their kids now. We heard lots of stories of next gen donors with legal training who gravitate to those organizations that allow them to write legislative proposals or of donors with financial acumen who help organizations with their budgeting. And we heard from many others who had this sort of expertise but were never asked to give it.

Also try not to assume that your younger volunteers are not capable of being major donors. In fact, a few next gen donors we interviewed talked about how they often clandestinely give their time first to organizations that intrigue them—checking the group out and seeing the work up close before giving money. One donor who does this routinely advises, “Give meaningful jobs to volunteers, especially the younger folks. You never know who's volunteering for you and if that's going to be your next big donor.”

The Upside of Engaging Donors All In

Adapting to new types of engagement may be harder for your organization than others. For example, some nonprofits are stretched too thin to put in the time and staff resources needed to create and manage these sorts of deep engagements. Others need to be careful about who they bring deeply into the organization and how because of confidentiality or other concerns. And then there is the valid complaint that donors demanding talent-based engagements are exacerbating the power imbalance by forcing extra work on organizations just to make themselves feel good or to connect with peers—or even to simply, “Let me give my talents because I can do your job better than you.” But again, the benefits of finding mutually respectful ways of accommodating this all-in approach can pay off in the long term.

Another less obvious benefit of inviting next gen donors deeper into the inner workings of your organization in these ways is that doing so can often help them see the need for precisely the sort of funding many nonprofits prefer: unrestricted core operational or multiyear support. Next gen donors who get close to an organization say they come to see the organization's point of view and to better understand the need for this core support.

Bringing On the Next Gen in the Right Way

While many next gen donors want meaningful involvement beyond just a board seat, this doesn't mean they don't care about serving on your board. But if you are ready to take this step, be aware that next gens have lots of ideas for how best to handle that invitation and experience. They don't want to sit on a figurehead board; they want to serve your organization. This next gen donor shared a cautionary tale: “A prestigious nonprofit media company approached my wife and said, ‘Would you like to join our board?’ It required us giving tens of thousands of dollars a year and fundraising tens of thousands of dollars from other people. And of course we were like, ‘No. You're basically just selling a board seat.’ That's the complete opposite of what we're all about. We've got about 40 years of impact to give. I want to get better and smarter at it, so that when I do put in time, it matters.”

Next gen donors also recommend being very clear what the expectations are and “making sure that the individual understands the expectations and you have agreed what those expectations are.” Nonprofits that want to engage these younger donors often forget to pause, to set aside time for a board or organizational retreat to orient the new members, to lay out expectations like they would in a job description and to discuss the opportunities and challenges at hand.

In the spirit of a multigenerational team, consider the value of mentorship for new next gen board members. One popular recommendation is to assign veteran buddies within the organization who will help acclimate the new or next gen board member to the nonprofit and their roles during their first year.

Take Advantage of Unique Roles Next Gen Donors Can Play on Your Board

Next gen donors are typically more innovative and challenging of the status quo than older generations; while this can take some adjustment, it can also be a powerful asset for your organization if channeled properly. Their drive for impact can inject needed energy and focus into boards that have become too complacent over time and are in need of fresh ideas. And since next gen are the most highly networked group of donors ever and prefer to learn about philanthropic work through their peers, adding them to your board substantially increases your opportunities for awareness-building into new spheres of influence.

And always keep in mind that these younger board members want roles of actual substance, and to be taken seriously. The best-case scenario is that you intentionally field a multigenerational team in which previous power structures shift over time into board members of equal footing, and where two, three, or sometimes even four generations of members work together toward shared goals, and where each generation is valued for their unique contributions. The hope isn't that all board members become alike but, rather, that their generational differences complement one another to make a stronger organization overall. If this transition is made difficult by a fear of change, you can tap the aid of the many organizational consultants and other professionals who specialize in fostering healthy multigenerational dynamics, including on nonprofit boards.